


Perfect Strangers

by LeftPawedPolarBear



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: No actual soccercop, sorry i'm just not good at it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 17:37:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1787377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeftPawedPolarBear/pseuds/LeftPawedPolarBear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alison Hendrix and Elizabeth Childs grew up in the same neighborhood.<br/>It is my belief that there is no way they did not meet before the events of the show.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfect Strangers

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, someone on tumblr (I forget who, please forgive me!) remarked how hilarious it was that Beth and Alison lived something like FIFTEEN MINUTES away from each other. It's pretty likely that they grew up pretty close to where they lived as adults. Maybe they even went to the same school? Probably not. But I don't care.
> 
> Basically this pretty much works with canon up until the last two lines. I couldn't resist the last two lines. Sorry not sorry.

 

A girl clings tightly to the bars of a jungle-gym. She is seven years old, but she looks younger; Beth has always been small for her age, and the metal bars are spaced just far enough apart to make the climb awkward and mildly dangerous. Nevertheless, Beth ascends the apparatus with a ferocious determination. _She is not a baby. She is strong. She is fast. She is almost at the top—_

“Found you!”

Beth’s concentration slips and her body nearly follows, but she manages to secure her grip just in time to prevent an embarrassing tumble. She looks down to see a girl with blonde pigtails pointing up at hair, laughing gleefully.

“You weren’t even hiding, Ali!” the girl says, still grinning smugly, “Come on, you were the one wanted to play hide-and-seek!”

_Ali?_ Beth thinks, confused.

Now the blonde girl is frowning. “Ali, what are you doing on the jungle gym? You _hate_ the jungle gym.”

Before Beth can decide whether to answer her or ignore her, she hears someone calling from across the playground.

“Ayyyyyyynsleyyyyyyy!”

From her vantage point just below the peak of the jungle gym— _she’s so_ close—she makes out a girl with brown hair and a pink shirt crawl out from under the slide. “I win, Aynsley!” she shouts as the blonde girl turns, clearly recognizing her voice, “I counted to two hundred and you didn’t find me, so I win!”

The blonde girl—Aynsley—turns to look at Beth again, still frowning. Then she shrugs and chases after her friend. “No fair Ali, you have to count to _three_ hundred before you win!”

Beth keeps climbing.

 

*****

 

Alison Hendrix feels the eyes on her, hears the muffled sniggers as soon as she enters the cafeteria. Self-conscious, but eager not to show it, she whips her head around to give the table of eighth grade boys behind her a fierce glare. Most of them cower under her stare, but one boy with straight black hair and rather large ears holds her gaze.

“Hey Hendrix,” he says, smirking, “have you seen _Brent_ today?”

“No I have not seen Brent,” Alison snaps,“We don’t have history until after lunch. When else would I see him?”

“Oh I don’t know,” the boy with the black hair says, “just a little _bet_ we have running today.”

_He’s going to pants me,_ Alison thinks, horrified, _or dump his lunch in my lap, or make fun of me in front of the whole school, or—_

Brent stumbles into the cafeteria, pressing a tissue to a swollen and bloody nose.

The black-haired boy’s sneer disappears.

“Dude…?”

Brent shoves the boy with his free hand, nearly knocking him off his chair. “This is your fault, dumb-ass,” he growls loud enough for Alison to hear, but he doesn’t seem to notice her presence.

“What the hell happened?”

“I snapped her bra strap—and she punched me in the fucking nose!”

“Dude, Hendrix was in here, you must have gotten the wrong girl…”

Their voices fade as Alison leaves the cafeteria, smiling slightly and walking as quickly as she can without drawing attention to herself. 

She almost runs into Elizabeth Childs, walking in the other direction and massaging her slightly aching fist. 

Almost.

 

*****

 

“Alison! Hey—Alison!”

A lean, athletic-looking boy in a muddy soccer uniform chases after a girl with a slight frame and brown ponytail.

“Hey, wait up!” He catches up to her. “What, I don’t even get a contra..tul..lations?”

Something is wrong. He looks from the well-worn track shoes to bare legs, up to blue track shorts and a matching blue gym bag (Alison’s bag is pink, surely?), a plain gray tank-top, and then her face…

“Donnie!” Suddenly, Alison is there, pulling him away before he can react and yes, there is the cheerleading uniform and pink bow in her hair that he sought out for support during the more difficult parts of the game.

“Donnie, I’ve been looking for you everywhere! My parents are waiting to take us out to dinner…” she stops walking and goes up on tiptoe to reach Donnie’s ear. “…and then we can _celebrate_.”

Grinning, Donnie lets his girlfriend pull him toward her mother’s red minivan. He forgets about the girl with the blue track shorts.

Elizabeth Childs hefts her blue gym bag more comfortably onto her shoulder and watches them go.

 

*****

 

Elizabeth Childs cradles a cup of coffee in her gloved hands. She misses a lot of things about home when she’s away at college in the United States. She never misses the cold.

 

Alison Hendrix bursts into the coffee shop, collar pulled up and bright pink cap folded down over her ears. She pushes past other customers and orders a hot tea. She knows the cold makes her irritable. She doesn’t care.

 

Beth watches the woman in the pink cap cause a mild ruckus at the cash register. She snorts, finishes her coffee, and moves towards the door, ready for a long night of studying for finals. One of the perks of going to school in the United States is she gets US Thanksgiving off from classes. One of the bad things is she has to use all five days to cram as much of the information from her text books into her brain as possible. It’s a give and take.

 

Alison swipes her tea off of the counter as soon as her name is called. She stomps towards the door, not caring how many shoulders she shoves to make a clear path for herself. _The is Donnie’s fault._ I’m _making the time. If he’s too busy for a relationship then—_

 

Beth feels something hot and wet splash across her back. She whips around.

She meets Alison’s eyes.


End file.
